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$Unique_ID{bob00266}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Israel
Chapter 3D.   Multiparty System}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Richard F. Nyrop}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{party
parties
political
israel
herut
zionist
begin
labor
right
coalition
see
tables
}
$Date{1979}
$Log{See Table E.*0026601.tab
}
Title:       Israel
Book:        Israel, A Country Study
Author:      Richard F. Nyrop
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1979

Chapter 3D.   Multiparty System

     Israeli political life continues to revolve around the long-established
system of multiple parties. Given the diverse origins of a largely immigrant
population, it reflects a wide range of social and political tendencies. In
the first general elections, held in 1949, twenty-four political parties and
groups competed for parliamentary control. The number has since fluctuated
as a result of occasional mergers, splits, and realignments. Multiplicity
remains, however, deeply embedded in the pluralistic heritage of the society.

     Party politics continues to be vigorous and intense. There is a broad
popular consensus that the party system is well suited to Israel's
multiplicity of political subcultures. Popular empathy derives also from
the evolution of political parties not only as narrowly defined political
organizations, as in West European countries, but also as providers of social
and economic services for their respective followings.

     Major parties are traceable to origins in the European branches of the
World Zionist Organization, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, and to other
political and religious elements in the Palestine Jewish community of the
Mandate period (1923-48). After the turn of the twentieth century there
emerged a number of ideologically and politically disparate groups. For
example, a clique called the Democratic Zionists, including Chaim Weizmann
among its members, was active in 1900; the Mizrahi (Spiritual Center), a
moderate Orthodox religious Zionist movement, was founded in 1902; the
non-Marxist labor-Zionist Hapoel Hatzair (The Young Worker), set up in
1905, was instrumental in founding the first kibbutz and moshav soon
thereafter; and the Marxist Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion), including in its
membership Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi, was created in 1906 to initiate a
socialist-inspired class struggle.

     This early experience produced three major political alignments, all of
which were Zionist but were divided into varying shades of secularism and
religious orthodoxy. Two of these alignments were secular but ideologically
opposed: the leftist or socialist labor parties, of which Mapai was best
known and predominant; and the centrist-rightist parties, of which Herut
(Freedom Movement-see Glossary) was the dominant party and which eventually
won electoral mandate in 1977 under Begin. The third were religious Zionists
of Orthodox Jewish persuasion. A fourth or miscellaneous category of fringe
groups also emerged, but their impact on the political scene was minimal.

     The stated values of the political parties, other than the religious
and Arab noncommunist parties, may be arranged on the left-right spectrum of
socialist orientations on the left and capitalist, free-enterprise
orientations on the right, with some allowance for specific Israeli
manifestations. On the extreme left is the Rakah (New Communist) party, which
is orthodox socialist, pro-labor, and nonactivist with respect to the Arab
states, and the only anti-Western element on this scale. Of the
long-established parties, Mapam (United Workers' Party) is on the right of
Rakah, and the socialist Achdut HaAvoda (Unity of Labor, commonly called
Achdut) is on the right of Mapam. At left of center is the Israel Labor
Party (formerly Mapai), which is "positive neutralist" in foreign affairs but
to all intents and purposes pro-West and committed to democratic socialism. In
the middle of the spectrum are the small parties of the center such as the
Independent Liberals, Liberal and Free Center. On the far right is Herut, the
mainstay of Likud coalition; Herut is pro-Western, antisocialist, and
antilabor, and favors a hard-line policy toward the Arab states to include
retention of much of the occupied territories in order to regain the ancient
boundaries of Eretz Israel (Land of Israel) (see fig. 3, ch. 1). Although the
issues are far more complex, the positions of religious parties generally
coincide more with the political parties on the center and right than with
those on the left.

     Israeli parties are pervasive in their scope of activities, and unlike
parties in most other democracies, their activities remain relatively intense
even in nonelection years. In addition to their regular function of
campaigning, major parties publish their own newspapers and maintain youth
movements, sport clubs, housing projects, cooperatives, recreational
facilities, cultural events and, in the case of religious parties, their own
nonsecular schools. Indoctrination of children is an important part of party
activities. In fact the political parties are much like mutual aid societies.
Consequently voters tend to support parties not only as a civic duty but also
often as clients or fraternal brothers. Membership in a registered party is
not a requirement for voting, but though varying from election to election,
formal party membership is high and accounts for 25 to 50 percent of the vote.

     Except for the small Arab and communist groups, parties are basically
Zionist. Given the shades of allowable interpretation inherent in Zionism,
parties draw their support from a broad array of adherents who may be
religious, secular, or antireligious. In general, attempts to organize parties
on the basis of ethnic origin, such as Yemeni, Iraqi, or Moroccan Jew, have
not been fruitful. Ashkenazic dominance, firmly established before 1948, and
frictions among the Sephardim proved insurmountable.

     As a result, attainment of leadership roles has depended on a long,
dedicated party apprenticeship. The selection process (essentially a reward
and punishment procedure) is generally in the hands of party oligarchs in
control of party machines. These political bosses wield their powers in the
name of a "nominating committee" in each party. In the 1970s efforts were
under way to democratize the decisionmaking procedures among some parties
and to ensure the accountability of these oligarchs to the rank and file
of parties concerned.

     Israeli parties are highly centralized and cater to a single national
constituency. The country's electoral system, coupled with the centralized
structure of leadership among nearly all parties, is not conducive to
politics based on territorial subdivisions or local interests. Nevertheless
there have been indications since the late 1960s that local party branches
are allowed some independence in selecting locally popular personalities for
mayoral elections. This is in part necessitated by the growing tendency to
vote on the basis of personal merit-as seen in an emerging pattern of
split-ticket voting-rather than of traditional party loyalty. This trend, if
sustained, will likely eventuate in the decentralization of party control if
only to ensure that the voters will support the same party for national as
well as local elections.

     A dominant characteristics of Israeli party politics since independence
has been the pattern of coalition rule; this is a product of the combination
of multiple parties and the electoral system of proportional representation.
No single party has been able to secure a majority of seats in the 120-member
Knesset in any of the nine parliamentary elections held since independence.
As a result, the party with the largest number of Knesset seats has been
forced to enlist the support of interested parties to achieve the arithmetic
of coalition building-a plurality of sixty-one Knesset seats. In exchange,
the senior or dominant party agrees to honor specific demands of junior
coalition parties. Such quid pro quo is formalized as a political covenant
between coalition partners, spelling out the terms of mutual cooperation.
Necessarily governmental stability has hinged on a delicate balance of mutual
convenience. Thus a workable Knesset majority invariably means partnership
between secularist and Orthodox Jews, barring the marriage of convenience
between the two dominant secularist groups: the Israel Labor Party and the
Likud.

Parties on the Left

     The political scene was, until 1977, dominated by parties on the left
that differed widely in orientations, from moderate, non-Marxist socialist to
doctrinaire Marxist. In the late 1970s the largest and most influential of the
leftist parties remained the Israel Labor Party, which had controlled key
cabinet positions in all the coalition governments of which it was the
dominant partner. This success was accomplished through pragmatic and flexible
accommodations with other competing but smaller parties. In 1978 the party
provided the principal opposition to the Likud, which until its electoral
victory in May 1977 had been the principal rival.

     Historically the names of Ben-Gurion, Zalman Shazar, Eshkol, Meir, Pinhas
Sapir, Kadish Luz, and Abba Eban are associated with the Israel Labor Party.
The party traces its origin to 1930 when it was called Mapai. It was founded
as a fusion of two socialist Zionist groups: Achdut-heir to Ben-Gurion's
Poalei Zion-and HaPoel Hatzair; ten years earlier, these two groups together
had founded the Histadrut. Because of the diversity of sociopolitical
tendencies of the country, the party itself has not been free of factional
differences and ideological cleavages.

     In 1944 the non-Marxist left wing Achdut HaAvoda split off from Mapai
in dissatisfaction with the latter's moderateness, and in early 1948 it
joined forces with doctrinaire Marxist groups to organize Mapam with a
pro-Soviet orientation (see fig. 9). In 1954 Achdut disassociated from Mapam,
which it believed was being unduly influenced by doctrinaire Marxists, and in
1965 it reunited with Mapai, thus ending its independent status. The 1965
alliance, known as the Mapai-Achddut HaAvoda Alignment, came about amid
major factional clashes between Ben-Gurion and Eshkol. Ben-Gurion's right-wing
faction within Mapai, including Dayan and Shimon Peres, seceded from Mapai
and formed Rafi (Israel Labor List); but in 1968 the Rafi faction (not
including Ben-Gurion) rejoined the Mapai to establish the Israel Labor Party.
In January 1969 when the Labor Party entered into a new alliance with Mapam,
the Rafi faction left the party because of ideological incompatibility with
the Marxist Mapam. The Rafi group contested the parliamentary election in 1969
under the flag of State List (also National List). The Labor-Mapam Alignment,
as the 1968 entente came to be known, was still in place in 1978, but for all
practical purposes the Labor Party was synonymous with the alignment.

     The alignment draws its electoral support from urban and rural voters and
is popular with the middle-and lower middle-class Ashkenazim and many
well-to-do Sephardic voters. The Histadrut continues to provide the
backbone of Mapai strength as it has done from its very inception. The
kibbutz and moshav are heavily represented by Labor and Mapam as well. In the
ideological span of the alignment per se, the Achdut stands on the right and
Mapam on the left of the numerically dominant Labor Party. In goals and
policies, the highly pragmatic Labor group stands for a socialist welfare
state in which economic activities are planned by the state and publicly
regulated and by private initiatives as well. Labor also supports full
employment, minimum wages, and the workers' unqualified right to strike.

     For its part, Mapam is antireligious and takes a more Marxist position
by stressing the need to establish a classless socialist society in which
all enterprises are publicly owned; its other demands are for guaranteed
wages, progressive taxation, collectivist economy, and equal rights for Arabs.
The Achdut group advocates policies aimed at a more efficient and responsive
government. It stands for electoral reforms aimed at a local (rather than
national) constituency system, decentralization of government, separation of
political parties from economic activities, and automatic cost-of-living
allowances.

Parties on the Center and Right

     In the ninth Knesset election in May 1977, the center-right alliance of
Likud emerged victorious and supplanted the Labor-Mapam Alignment as the
ruling coalition for the first time in the history of independent Israel. The
backbone of the ruling bloc is the Herut that came into being in 1948 under
the leadership of Begin. At the time of the election, the Herut was allied
with the centrist-oriented minor groups such as the Liberal Party, the State
List, and a faction of the Land of Israel Movement. In late 1977 a new
centrist group that had been formed in late 1976, the Democratic Movement for
Change (DMC), joined the Likud-led coalition government.

     The Herut party is the direct ideological descendant of the Revisionist
Movement, a party founded in 1925 by a Russian Jewish Zionist intellectual,
Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Revisionists, so named to underscore the urgency of
revision in the policies of the Zionist Organization, advocated militancy and
ultranationalism, not conciliation and gradualism, as the primary political
imperatives in the Zionist struggle for Jewish statehood.

     Mostly middle-class Jews from Eastern Europe, the Revisionists demanded
the immediate creation of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine on both
sides of the Jordan River. To this end, mass evacuation or immigration of Jews
with skills and capital from the Diaspora was considered essential. The
society so envisaged would be based on free enterprise economy and undertake
rapid industrial development to provide more opportunities for immigrants than
would be possible through agricultural settlement. The Jewish state would
have a strong military organization and be free of class struggle, and class
harmony was to be ensured by banning strikes and by compulsory arbitration of
labor disputes. Revisionist objectives were bound to clash with the policies
of the British authorities, the socialist Zionists, and the Arabs.

     The Revisionist Movement at first directed its attack on the Histadrut,
whose socialist Zionist leadership under Ben-Gurion was synonymous with the
leadership of the politically dominant Mapai-and thus with the leadership of
prestate Israel. Ben-Gurion accused the Revisionists of being "fascists"; the
latter countercharged that Ben-Gurion and his socialist Zionist allies not
only discriminated against middle-class immigrants but also were misusing
the Jewish institutions of the New Yishuv for selfish goals.

     In 1933 the Revisionists, outnumbered and frustrated, bolted the Zionist
Organization and formed the rival New Zionist Organization; in 1934 it set up
the Histadrut HaOvdim Haleumit (National Labor Federation) to challenge the
Mapai-dominated Histadrut. With unusual venom, these Revisionist dissidents
rejected the authority of official socialist Zionist leadership, especially
the latter's conciliation with the British Mandatory Authority and, after
1936, the British and official Zionist policies of restraint in the face of
Arab attacks. Against this backdrop were born two anti-British and anti-Arab
guerrilla groups under Revisionist control; the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National
Military Organization, Irgun for short) in 1937 and the offshoot of the Irgun,
called the Stern Gang, in 1940. The Revisionist groups operated independently
of, and at times in conflict with, the official Zionist defense organization,
the Haganah (see Glossary); they engaged in systematic terror and sabotage
against the British authorities and the Arabs as well (see Historical
Background, ch. 5). When World War II ended, some Revisionists reunited with
the official Zionist camp, but the more militant elements, such as the Irgun,
under the command of Begin, refused to temporize and continued their campaign
of terror.

     Born in 1913 in Poland, Begin was reared and schooled in that country;
a political activist early in life, he joined Betar-a Revisionist paramilitary
youth movement that had been formed by Jabotinsky in 1921. By 1938 Begin
had risen to the top of the Polish chapter of Betar, by far the largest of the
Jewish youth movements in Europe at the time. Arrested in 1940 by Soviet
military authorities, Begin was imprisoned in Siberia until late 1941. In 1942
he enlisted in a Polish army formed on the Allied side for service in
Palestine; once the army got to Palestine, Begin deserted and joined the
underground Irgun and soon became its commander. By that time, Begin had in
fact become the leader of the Revisionist Movement as a whole, his
mentor-Jabotinsky-having died in 1940.

     After independence the Irgun, by then a formidable guerrilla machine,
and other paramilitary organizations were dissolved by order of Prime
Minister Ben-Gurion-but not without resistance from the Irgun. A possible
civil war was averted. Some Revisionists merged with other Zionist groups;
some enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces that were placed under Ben-Gurion
Israel's first minister of defense as well as prime minister. Other Irgun
loyalists followed Begin to found the Herut in June 1948 and to carry out, as
Begin once put it, "the testament of Jabotinsky." In the following year other
Revisionist remnants joined the Herut. Thereafter Herut's anti-Arab hostility
grew increasingly intense in the circular process of Israeli-Arab
confrontation.

     Independence and the passage of time had little mellowing effect on old
envenomed relations between Begin and Ben-Gurion. As Mapai's strong-willed
leader until 1963, the Grand Old Man of Israel, as Ben-Gurion came to be
reverentially called by many Israelis, ruled the nation by necessity in
coalition with other parties; but never once did he invite the Herut, the
loyal opposition that it was, to participate in coalition. Ben-Gurion stuck to
his dictum: "A coalition without Herut or Communists!"

     In 1965 the Herut broadened its political base somewhat by forming a new
bloc with the bourgeois Liberal Party. Called Gahal, the bloc was aimed at
counteracting the unity movement among the parties on the left. Two years,
later, just before the outbreak of the six-day war, the Herut gained some
respectability as a legitimate Jewish political group by agreeing to join the
"government of national unity." This was made possible by Prime Minister
Eshkol, who had succeeded Ben-Gurion in June 1963 and who invited Begin and
his Gahal associates to participate in the cabinet to demonstrate internal
unity in response to an external threat. Gahal continued to be part of the
transpartisan new cabinet under Meir formed after the 1969 elections. Gahal
ministers withdrew from the Meir cabinet in 1970 to protest what they believed
was Prime Minister Meir's conciliatory policy on territorial issues (see
Aspects of Foreign Relations, this ch.). In the summer of 1973 the Gahal
organized a new political alignment called Likud in which the Herut continued
to be dominant.

     The imprint of Begin's personality on the Herut is indelible. The party
is remarkably consistent in its political orientation, which was shaped in the
1920s. In tone there have been some changes in electoral platforms over the
years, but substance has remained undiluted. In the late 1970s the Herut
continued to advocate the eternal and incontestable right of the Jewish
people to Eretz Israel in its historic entirety. In an obvious attempt to
change the negative image with which the party was encumbered-the image of an
expansionist "war party"-Begin's group softened the tone of its territorial
claim so that the eastern side of the Jordan River, that is, Jordan, is not
expressly included in the claim. On the West Bank (Judea and Samaria),
however, the Herut continued to maintain, as of mid-1978, that only Israel
sovereignty would prevail between the sea and Jordan; the historic right of
the Jews to the Gaza Strip was similarly upheld.

     In the months after his ascension to power, Begin proceeded generally
with caution on economic policies that for years included a minimum of
government controls, unhampered free enterprise economy, attraction of capital
investments through economic structural reforms, and the minimization of
political dependence on the trade unions (i.e, the Histadrut). On the issue of
compulsory arbitration, the party had altered its position even before 1977 so
that such a method of settlement would be limited to essential services only.

     With respect to the territorial question, Begin showed little inclination
of compromising his principles. He was shown to be a man of unswerving
fortitude in his political philosophy spanning a period of over thirty years.
According to Meir Merhav of the Jerusalem Post, Begin declared as early as
May 1948: "The homeland is historically and geographically an entity. Whoever
fails to recognize our right to the entire homeland, does not recognize our
right to any of its territories. We shall uever yield our natural and eternal
right. When the day arrives, we shall materialize it." On Begin, Merhav went
on to comment in August 1977: "The leadership is genuine. However, it derives
not from intellectual stature or profundity of thought, but from constancy
of purpose, single-minded determination, a sense of mission and an absolute
inner certitude of being right and in the right, which have characterized
him throughout. This is why it is Begin and no one else who makes foreign
policy in the present Government."

     The Herut's electoral support comes mainly from the Sephardim who
comprise the bulk of the Israelis with little education and low income
levels. Around 15 percent of the Ashkenazic voters consistently supported
the Herut, whose strength is noticeable among the urban dispossessed in the
big cities like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In terms of popular votes and the
number of Knesset seats, the Herut was in second place between 1955 and 1977
(see table E).

     After capturing the single largest bloc of seats (forty-three) in the
Knesset election of 1977 but still short of the required parliamentary
majority, the Herut-led Likud called for the formation of a national unity
coalition comprising all Zionist parties loyal to Israel; the Labor Party
rejected the proposal. By late June Prime Minister-designate Begin was able
to form a coalition government with the support of an additional twenty
Knesset members; the religious bloc came through with seventeen seats: the
National Religious Party, twelve; Agudat Israel, four; the Poalei Agudat
Israel, one. Additional support came from the small Shlomzion party with two
seats and one from Dayan, who was reelected on the Labor-Mapam list but who
decided to accept Begin's invitation to become his foreign minister as an
unattached deputy.

     Begin, like many of his Herut followers, is secular but does not
necessarily advocate the removal of religious influences from secular affairs.
He apparently holds the view that being Jewish embraces both nationality
and religiosity, mutually reinforcing and inseparable. In this sense his
position is similar to that of many Jews whatever their political and social
backgrounds. Thus to the extent that certain religious manifestations are
viewed as strengthening the preservation of Jewish identity in all its
traditional ramifications, Begin tended to support the Orthodox Jews.

     The Liberal Party is the mouthpiece mainly of upper and middle-class
merchants and businessmen. Its origin is traced to the 1920s and 1930s when,
in light of growing cleavages within the Zionist movement, some Zionists
sought to unify the movement without partisan wranglings over religious,
socialist, or Revisionist loyalties. These middle-of-the-road elements
advocated practical steps for the welfare of the yishuv by stressing
fundraising activities, industrial development, and private enterprise. In
time, however, these supposedly apolitical Zionists split into two wings
called General Zionist A group and General Zionist B group; the former
was left of center and was oriented toward the Histadrut and the latter
was right of center, backed by a small number of industrialists, merchants,
landlords, professionals, and intellectuals. In 1946 the two factions merged
to become the General Zionist Party, but the smaller B faction broke away from
the party in 1948 to be named the Progressive Party-only to rejoin the
parental group in 1961. The new merger, called the Liberal Party,
ended in 1965 when it joined forces with the Herut to found a coalition called
Gahal; at that time, the B faction of the Liberal Party again split from the
party rather than join the Gahal and named itself the Independent Progressive
Party. In 1973 the Liberal bloc of Gahal became a component of a still larger
coalition, Likud, which comprised the Herut and such minor centrist groups
as the State List and the Land of Israel Movement (formed after the six-day
war to advocate the annexation of the territories taken during the war). In
1978 the Liberal bloc was led by Minister of Finance Simha Ehrlich, widely
regarded as the second or third most influential member of the ruling group.

[See Table E.: Knesset Election Results, 1949-77]

     A new political era was ushered in by Likud's electoral success in 1977,
but, in a way, this was foreshadowed by a growing mood of national
soul-searching in the wake of the October 1973 War. Indicative of this trend
was a group of reformist intellectuals led by Hebrew University of Jerusalem
law professor Amnon Rubenstein; shortly after the war they formed the Shinui
(Change) as a forum through which to draw national attention to the Labor
government's military "blunder"-its lack of preparedness when the war broke
out. At the end of 1976 this group merged with a democratic movement that had
been formed only several months earlier by Yadin, a noted archeologist and
scholar who was the army chief of staff in 1948. The merger produced the
Democratic Movement for Change (DMC-also known as DASH after its Hebrew name).
Yadin's group was formed to bring about some reforms and to restore the nation
to the vigor of the pioneering, moral values held by the founding generation
of Israel. In January 1977 the DMC absorbed Shmuel Tamir's Free Center, which
had been organized by dissidents from Herut in 1967.

     The DMC drew its support from a wide spectrum of social segments. Among
its adherents were academics, technocrats, industrialists, party politicians
of liberal as well as conservative orientations, white-collar workers, retired
senior army officers, and housewives. They belonged to the best educated,
upper echelons of the population; although mostly Ashkenazim, they also
attracted Sephardim of similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Politically many of
them had previously supported the Labor-Mapam Alignment.

     These elements were drawn together to articulate their feelings for a
new direction in political life, being disillusioned as they were with growing
signs of corruption in high places, with the other established political
parties in general and the Labor-Mapam Alignment in particular, and with the
persistence of socio-economic disparities. Their disillusionment was
translated into the DMC's platform that called, among other things, for a
change in the existing electoral system based on a single national
constituency, remedial measures for the uplifting of the underprivileged
sections of the population, a more effective anti-inflation program, and
reforms in the existing structures and procedures of political parties to
minimize oligarchical influence in favor of greater grassroots participation.

     In foreign policy and defense matters, the party's plank was moderate
and was similar to that of the Labor-Mapam Alignment. It called for an
Israeli defense border along the Jordan River including areas west of the
river essential for Israel's security. The DMC stated that the creation of a
separate Palestinian state on the West Bank would endanger Israel's security
and existence and opposed any withdrawal from the West Bank unless the
withdrawal was as an integral part of a full peace treaty. Otherwise the party
advocated a "readiness for territorial compromise" with the Arab state east of
Israel, the capital of which should be on the East Bank. This view was based
on the recognition that an additional one million Arabs living on the West
Bank and Gaza under Israeli control would complicate and dilute the Jewish
character of Israel and that the solution of the Palestinian issue must be
found within the framework of a true peace settlement, a settlement that would
assure Israel's own security needs.